


game of survival

by mkomori



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Past Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench (Fargo), Wrench dealing with his feelings, past Nikki Swango/Ray Stussy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24746533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mkomori/pseuds/mkomori
Summary: Wrench learns how to deal with grief. Or tries to.
Relationships: Nikki Swango & Mr. Wrench
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	game of survival

**Author's Note:**

> ps: english isn't my first language, i hope i didn't make many mistakes!

00.

Wrench wakes up sweating, his hands shaking beyond his control. He knows he was dreaming; he has had the same dream for months now. Every morning he tries to remember the details, but all that comes to his mind is white. A storm of white and wind and, almost hidden from him in plain sight, a sea of red.

Grieving, it seems, is easier said than done.

01.

He doesn’t hesitate.

He finds a job immediately, does what he does best. There, they shake his hand and nod, eyes filling with respect. A pat on the back, a hand on his shoulder. He’s alone now, and these touches are the only constants in his life.

Before, before the blood and all the fucking snow, he had to pretend to care about anything that wasn’t in his immediate reach – his gun, his jacket, _him_. He did a shit job at that and was told as much. Now, in the abysm of _after_ , these touches are the only reminders that he is alive.

He’s still after the man- the thing that spoke to him at the hospital. Between the hits and the nightmares he tries to hunt the animal down, but without Fargo, there’s only so much he can actually do. However hopeless Wrench might feel, he thinks someday these odd jobs will give him the answers he seeks.

(It never gets better, though. The ache inside of him. It never goes away. Wrench knows there’s something essential missing from him now, has never been a fool or delusional about matters in which concern him and him alone. He doesn’t allow himself to think about it too much, knows how much it could cost him. But at night, before he’s swallowed by the memories of that day, he feels the emptiness that surrounds him and in his mind he outlines a face he doesn’t want to forget.)

Nevertheless, realizations such as these have no place in his life at the moment. He’s working, and that could be enough someday.

And it starts to be until it abruptly isn’t.

During a stakeout somewhere he doesn’t have any business in, Wrench reads the paper and doesn’t notice it has fallen from his hands until he looks down at his foot and sees a picture of a police chief and a mailman together and the words above it:

“MANHUNT FINALLY OVER IN BEMIDJI”

His fists curl up and for a second rage blinds him entirely. Wrench feels out of control, his wrist numb. Desperately, he almost thinks he is bleeding out again, but his wounds are healed and he is alone. Now, there is no one else left to pay for what happened in Duluth, and he is alone.

Those words echo in his head and all he can picture is a man dying in the middle of nowhere while the devil himself watches as he takes his last breath.

Wrench had thought revenge would be all that was left for him.

Bitterly, he realizes even that was taken away from his hands.

(He still remembers the way Numbers’ lips moved. He had spent a great deal of his time paying attention to those lips. Wrench enjoyed seeing the way it would slightly pout when saying his name. _Wes_. They had known each other almost their whole lives, but he never got tired of his name on Number’s mouth. He liked to watch him say it. He liked feeling the warmth on his skin when the other man whispered it against him.

He wishes he was there, at the end. If he could have at least held Numbers’ hand... If he could have taken him away from the cold if he could have protected him and-

Nothing about that matters anymore. Numbers is dead. Malvo is dead. There’s nothing for him anymore.)

02.

He gets careless, after. The world has changed and his new bosses have computers and hackers and an excuse to let him go. Wrench knows what they see when they look at him: someone stuck in the past, a creature of a country that no longer exists. You can threaten someone with Facebook now, someone had said to him in a meeting. All anonymous, all the more effective. Wrench does his best not to kill the translator: he knows it ain’t his fault.

(He knows very well why they never ran away together. He wishes he didn’t, so he could pretend that had been an option.)

So he gets a little careless, lets anger consume him. It isn’t that he’s too old for this, it isn’t that he’s too broken, it is that he doesn’t care anymore and that in itself feels like giving up.

That’s how he ends up inside a prison bus, stuck next to a lady with danger following her behind.

03.

Truth is, he decides he’ll help her as soon as she writes the word SORRY on the snow. Wrench had always been able to recognize a lonely soul.

Nikki, as she introduces herself, isn’t running away just to save her life. There’s a fire behind her eyes and intent in every move she makes. She’s a smart woman.

Wrench takes the steps she doesn’t know how to take, acknowledging that she’s now part of his kind of world not out of choice but because someone or something forced her hand to do so. Wrench had grown to be able to recognize loss too.

Theirs is a road filled with sketchy motel rooms and shadows hidden in the dark. After weeks on the move, Nikki gives him a piece of white paper with the words “You don’t need to help me go after them” written down on it. Wrench only nods and then writes a reply: “What kind of help do you want?”.

They’ve spilled blood together, after all. He believes that tends to mean something.

04.

It’s afternoon in the middle of nowhere when she asks him if he could teach her sign language. Nikki has already decided that he will, he can see it in the way she slightly frowns, how she looks at her hands and seems to wonder if they could say what her mouth isn’t able to.

Truth is, Nikki turns out to be a better student than Numbers. He was too impatient and a little impulsive. Nikki, however, is the complete opposite: she watches him, gets books from the internet, and reads them while he’s asleep. She demands more when she thinks Wrench isn’t teaching her enough, and practices every day.

 _You never asked me why I’m doing this,_ Nikki says once she knows how to do it. She still makes mistakes, but she’s getting there.

 _Don’t need to_ , is his reply.

_Why are you helping me?_

He looks at her lap, at the new set of cards she bought a few weeks ago, and wonders if he is as possessive of his jacket as she is of those cards. He wants to tell her: because I see something in you. He wants to yell at her: because you don’t know what you’re doing. He wants to beg her: because you’ll end up killed if you don’t stop. He wants to confess to her: because I was alone, and now I’m not.

Instead, he nods and says instead: _Because you saved my life._

05.

It isn’t until a month later that she cracks.

Nikki rarely lets her emotions get the best of her; she’s a woman with a plan on her mind and the courage to make it work, so it comes as a shock when he sees her restless mask slip.

Wrench is guarding their newest hotel room when she arrives smelling like vodka and cheap cigarettes. He simply stares at her, positioning himself out of the way. She almost knocks the table lamp down trying to turn it on, managing to drop the set of cards all over the floor. At that, Nikki starts to cry.

She starts picking them up one by one, her lips moving as only one word is said. Not just a word. A name.

He helps her up and she lets him, slowly trying to stop the tears from coming. But, as much as she tries, they keep on falling. Nikki looks at him then, wide-eyed and a little too drunk, and says: _He is a cat now._

Wrench doesn’t know how to comfort people, he never learned how. And the bit of what he knows of Nikki tells him she doesn’t how to be comforted either. They’re loners, the two of them.

 _Wanna talk about it?_ , he asks her once the tears have stopped. Nikki doesn’t stay vulnerable for too long; her expression has already changed and her feelings are once again carefully hidden. The dried tears on her cheeks are the only proof of her sorrow, and she doesn’t make any more attempts to clean them away.

 _They killed my Ray,_ she says. _I need to make them pay._

That, he understands.

06.

It’s days before the meeting with Varga, and Nikki is as resolute as ever. Anger, he notices, is something she channels into determination and focus.

(He thinks: Nikki and Numbers would’ve gotten along well. They would drink, scream, fight, and probably shoot each other. Nikki would’ve hated the arrogance in each of Numbers’ words and he would’ve despised her stubbornness. But then, _but then_ , they would’ve made a hell of a team.)

 _Do you think he’s gonna do it?_ , she asks.

He arches his eyebrows. _Hope so._

She starts to pace around the room, biting her nails. Wrench stops her, holding her wrists as she looks at him with a question in her eyes.

 _They will pay,_ he says before Nikki does. She looks at him and touches his shoulder reassuringly; with that simple touch, he knows that she knows he isn’t just talking about the money. _I’ll make sure of it._

07.

Wrench kills the brother once Nikki is gone. When he pulls the trigger, he finally feels free. He could tell himself it was only because he was resolving an unsettled matter; Nikki wanted the man gone and died before killing him herself. But that wasn’t the whole truth. Before her, he didn’t have anyone. He was alone and then he wasn’t. Before her, he thought no one could understand the intensity of his grief. He was alone and then he wasn’t. It was only fair he paid back what she had given him.

He isn’t a fool, knows if her Ray became a cat is because they were goddamn good people that would probably meet again in all cosmic glory. He knows Numbers was no saint. He knows _he_ is no saint. But deep down, he hopes, for the first time in a long time.

He hopes he’ll dream again, and that this time he won’t see blood or snow but dark hair and a crooked smile. 

He hopes, and somehow that becomes enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i have this thought that wrench saw himself in nikki and that's why he helped her till the end. the most loyal criminal ever, we have to stan.


End file.
